


tangle them roots

by deniigiq



Series: Inimitable Verse [10]
Category: Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)
Genre: And these folks just make him tired, Anxiety, Cops vs Vigilantes, Family, Family Drama, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Identity Reveal, Matt has a hard day, Multiverse, Past Child Abuse, Peter B being a grump, Team Bonding, Team Dynamics, Team Red, Trying to be supportive, parenting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-02
Updated: 2019-04-02
Packaged: 2020-01-01 04:57:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18329060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deniigiq/pseuds/deniigiq
Summary: So his kid was Spiderman.No big deal.Ha.Hahahahaha.Fuck.(Jefferson finds out about Miles. He and Rio end up talking to Aunt May for some advice, but ultimately find themselves trying to adapt to a world in which their kid is Spiderman and friends with a million other Spidermen.)





	tangle them roots

**Author's Note:**

> hi, hi, hi. This is very self-indulgent because I wanted to try to write an identity reveal with Jefferson and Rio. It doesn't really have a set timeline in the Inimitable verse, I literally just wanted to see it happen.
> 
> It will make so much more sense if you read the other works in the series, but I do a little explaining in this one, so technically you don't have to. 
> 
> Aight, I'm still on vacation, so Imma go back to that for a little bit. I'll go back to making this verse mostly about Inimitable Peter and friends soon.

So his kid was Spiderman.

No big deal.

Ha.

Hahahahaha.

Fuck.

Really, if he was honest with himself, Jefferson would admit that he’d actually known about Miles for a while now. Since the hug if he was really, truly honest with himself. The school security guard’s letter had just been the cherry on top.

But now. Well.

Now it wasn’t just him standing in the kitchen at night just trying to _understand_. Trying to properly consume and digest the fact that his kid. His goofy, day-dreaming fourteen-year-old, who had been a goofy, day-dreaming four-year-old what felt like barely two minutes ago, had been the teeny tiny Spiderman who’d stood up in Jeff’s view after taking Fisk’s fists head on.

Miles was the itsy, bitsy spider that soared through the spaces between buildings, teeth set and arcing out of Brooklyn’s jaws, night after night, carrying on the work that Peter Parker had left behind. Peter Parker, the twenty-six-year-old kid who the entire PDNY had been screaming and screeching and shooting after for more than ten long years.

Peter Parker, the kid Jefferson had been called to help interview just a few months earlier, whose brain was scrambled like fried eggs. He’d seemed so much smaller restrained in a hospital bed, pale and barely lucid. Jefferson was made aware by the officers on his case that, after some intense cell therapy at a SHIELD facility, Parker was a lot less of a space cadet than he had been when Jefferson had made his acquaintance. For example, he didn’t need his aunt or his wife to squeeze his hand or gently redirect him back to whatever his interviewer was saying. And, interestingly, it turned out that he was friends with who Station 55 referred to as the bane of their existence—a fresh-faced lawyer just out of law school named Matt Murdock.

Jefferson recognized the name for two reasons. Firstly, he and Aaron had had a four-year-stint of being obsessed with local boxers and Matt Murdock’s dad was one of those guys who was always on tv, losing like his life depended on it.

To his credit, the man never went down easy and Jefferson couldn’t remember him ever staying there. His kid, Station 55 moaned, had the same kind of fight in him and his disability and deep-seated trauma from his dad’s murder seemed to have lit the goddamn Olympic torch under his ass.

Matt Murdock never went down easy and he’d sued the ever-loving fuck out of the scientist who’d messed with his dear beloved buddy.

The second reason Jefferson knew Matt Murdock was because Matt Murdock was the man who had saved his life. Jefferson and Rio had a lawyer, they did, they had to. Jeff was a cop. He wasn’t an idiot. Matt Murdock, however, thought that their family lawyer _was_ an idiot and he’d thrown his own book right in the guy’s face not even a week into Jefferson’s fun, not-so-exciting, never to be repeated, stint in jail on false charges. Mr. Murdock—“call me ‘Matt’—threw Jeff’s guy out a proverbial window, threatened him with charges of malpractice, then sunk his pretty, shiny teeth into Jeff’s paperwork and didn’t yank them out until Jeff was sitting in a courtroom, listening to the click-clack of handcuffs being unlocked.

Jeff had a healthy appreciation for Matt Murdock and his dad.

He also had a horrible, horrible suspicion that Matt Murdock was some kind of besties with Spiderman. Peter Parker, Spiderman. And, if his eyes did not deceive him, he was some kind of besties with the new Spiderman, the Miles Morales Spiderman, too. He could have sworn that he’d seen Matt Murdock’s name in one of Miles’s text messages. Right by the initials ‘DD.’

Matt was such a good kid.

A sweet kid. A kind kid.

Jeff didn’t want to believe that he had anything to do with that fucking madman who ran circles around Station 55 from Mon to Sun. But then again, he hadn’t wanted to believe that his son, his baby, the light of his goddamn life, was out there taking on mafia bosses, mutated scientists, corrupt politicians, day in and day out.

It was kind of comedic, actually.

Teeny, baby Miles in his skin-tight black suit bopping around with Jeff’s very own lawyer, blind and made up all in red. A little devil.

Teaching Miles the ropes.

He had to be. The playful punches Miles bopped against Jeff’s shoulders these days weren’t as messy and uncoordinated as before. They were loose. Lax. Comfortable and confident.

He wondered if that was Matt and his bright smile or Peter and his gentle crow’s feet. Teaching Jeff’s baby how to keep his thumbs intact and hit a target where it counted.

He wondered if that shouldn’t be him.

Rio didn’t think so.

And that was a whole other problem, here. If it had just been Jeff who’d found out, who’d nursed these suspicions, that would be one thing. But Rio was in on it, too. She was the one who’d found Miles’s phone abandoned on the table. Lighting up with messages from “PP” saying that he didn’t have any experience with anyone named ‘Connors’ but he was going ‘jumping’ that night, so he was sure to ‘find an SM who does.’

‘Jumping,’ Miles’s other messages from ‘PP’ revealed, was when Peter—because it could only be Peter—moved through some kind of space and time portal into other universes with other Spider-people. He brought Miles messages from other Spidermen. From someone called ‘B.’ and ‘Gwen’ earlier on in their conversation, and then later, in the week and days before, from ‘Peni,’ ‘Noir,’ ‘Ham,’ ‘Benj,’ ‘Tats,’ ‘Bitsy,’ ‘Wade’--there were _so many of them_.

And so it came out that Peter was still Spiderman-ing, even though he’d promised a judge and the whole of NYC that he was done. Finished. Over and retired. He’d apologized publicly for all the distress he’d caused the city, all the little old ladies he’d scared and all the police officers he’d driven damn near to distraction. But he didn’t apologize for saving anyone and he didn’t apologize for making Spiderman to begin with. All he said was that he was sorry and that he’d no longer keep up the vigilantism in the city. And that was understandable now; he’d moved on to greener pastures. It turned out that there were lots and lots and lots of NYCs in need of a Spiderman, even those which already had one.

Peter was such a kind-hearted, soft-spoken young man. Jeff didn’t know what to do with this information now that he had it. Yes, Peter was very clearly violating his court order and he was even more obviously involved in supporting his protégé in taking up the banner in his wake. But Miles also came home these days with more pleases and thank yous and hugs than ever, and Jeff—and more importantly, Rio—suspected that this stemmed from Peter’s quiet tutelage.

To confront Peter was to risk alienating his kid. His kid who Jeff had finally starting to get close to again. His kid who, without the support of family and friends, might die out there, fighting folks too big and too strong for him to truly understand.

Jeff was a cop, not an idiot.

He understood. The slightest falter in Miles’s confidence—even the barest hint of self doubt was now a matter of life and death for the boy. Rio was furious. Thought that they needed to remove Miles from the situation entirely. Pull him back in and get him medical intervention. Something, she insisted, had to exist to help fix the mutation.

Something. Anything.

Miles was their baby. He wouldn’t have asked for this. Being Spiderman had brought him nothing but pain. He’d watched his own uncle die. He’d looked down the barrel of his own father’s gun. And right now, there was nothing they could do to help him heal from that. As far as Rio was concerned, enough was enough.

Jeff wasn’t so sure. He wanted to be. Wanted to support Rio because she was usually right, and he trusted her and her intuition to the very center of his bones. Rio had carried and held their son steady for years and in all those moments when Jeff couldn’t. She knew how to make him smile and how to make him trust when Jeff couldn’t.

But on this one.

This one, Jeff thought that maybe he was the one in the right here.

Confronting Miles and pulling him away would only make him pull back, even closer towards Peter and Spiderman. He saw Peter as his friend. His mentor. Literally the only person in the world who understood what he had to be going through. And Peter, if his reputation was any kind of accurate, would never hurt him. If the guy’s texts were anything to go off of, too, he really also did seem to genuinely care about Miles and relate to him in an easy kind of way which Rio and Jeff hadn’t been able to do for years.

Peter wrote Miles, in a text with days of nothing on either side of it, “You can do this, Miles. You’re stronger than you even know.” And followed it up with nothing.

That kind of trust and support had to feel really good for Miles. Unconditional. Understanding. Validating as hell.

Jeff didn’t think it was wise to plant seeds of doubt there. Rio was right, Miles had already watched his uncle die, his father threaten to kill him. He’d attended his hero’s funeral and Jeff strongly suspected that that little black Spiderman had a lot to do with Peter Parker’s reemergence, too.

If he thought that Spiderman was betraying him, too, well.

Miles was a tough nut to crack. But he _would_ eventually crack. And that might just do it.

“Jefferson,” Rio pleaded with him, “He is our son. Our son. We have a responsibility to protect him.”

He knew, he knew.

But he was also their son and they had a responsibility to support him and Jeff could not think of a moment in which he’d need more support.

 

 

It was a week before he and Rio agreed. They took deep, painful breaths in and tried to let them out without shaking. Rio cried, smashed her face against his shoulder. Smeared tears into the bare skin there at night. Jeff found tears on the drive to work, in passing Miles’s school.

He’d be home that weekend.

They’d have that hard conversation then. That Friday. And they’d see what he’d do and whatever he did, they agreed to support him.

 

 

Miles was many things, but a good liar wasn’t one of them.

He flicked his eyes between Jeff and Rio in dead panic when Jeff asked him how Peter was.

Horrified.

“Peter who?” he asked.

It was laughable. Truly laughable.

He was monumentally pissed that they’d read through his phone. Pissed at the invasion of his privacy, but also, Jeff could tell, furious with himself to have been so careless to leave it out on the table unlocked.

“Son,” he said.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Miles said before he could continue.

“Son,” he tried again.

“My friend’s name is Penny,” Miles argued.

“Miles,” Rio sighed, “Just. We _know_.”

Silence.

Miles didn’t do what Jeff expected him to. He’d expected some tears. More denial. An attempt to twist this situation so that it was about the invasion of his privacy. But it didn’t come. Instead, Miles took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Then he took another breath. He picked up his phone off the table.

“I’m going to go make a call,” he said.

He didn’t give them the option to say anything otherwise. He pushed back the chair and climbed the stairs to his room.

The door closed behind him and that was it.

 

 

Rio made a choked off sob into her cupped hand and Jeff stood up to wrap her into his arms. Pulled her tight against his chest.

Five minutes.

Five minutes and, to both of their surprise, Miles came back downstairs and pulled out the chair at the table and sat down. He fidgeted with his thumbs. Said nothing.

It was a sign for both Rio and Jeff to sit down with him. The clearest request Miles had ever asked for.

They sat.

Miles shuddered and breathed in deep, then out deep one more time.

“He says that it was bound to happen eventually--it always does,” he said. “He said that I should tell you guys everything.”

Wait. Seriously?

“Who, Miles?” he asked. He expected Spiderman. He didn’t expect—

“Daredevil.”

Daredevil.

Matt. Matthew. Young Matthew Murdock fighting for Jeff’s life in a courtroom of polished wood he couldn’t see.

“Matt,” he said slowly. Miles winced, then nodded.

“He said that when he kept secrets, it just hurt everyone around him more. He said he almost lost everyone forever because he couldn’t make himself honest and that isn’t fair to—to you guys, I guess. ‘Cause,” Miles broke off and his breath stuttered and his eyes shined, even as he tried to blink through it. It made Jeff’s throat start to ache and close.

“—‘Cause you love me. As much as I love you. And I don’t wanna hurt you or lose you like—”

Like he’d lost Aaron. Like _they’d_ lost Aaron.

Oh, honey. Oh, baby.

“I’m sorry.”

Oh, Miles.

Jeff could only hold his arms out and it took Miles a moment to see the gesture through his upset.

A beat.

Then the kid knocked over the chair in his flurry to squirm into Jefferson’s arms, pressed up against his neck. Sobbing like he hadn’t since he was a little kid. Since he’d gotten bullied in third grade—right before everyone fell in love with him the way Jeff and Rio had when he was born.

What do you say to your child in that moment? Of pain. Hurt. Betrayal and catharsis.

What do you say in the face of that kind of selflessness? Of your baby stepping up. Stepping out for the greater good and trying desperately to make you understand that he thought that his body was somehow worth less than the thousands of people it protected day in and day out.

Jefferson would never have thought that he’d have been close to that kind of light. Not only did he have Rio’s generosity to contend with, now he had Miles’s.

He wasn’t sure he’d ever been so proud.

Rio wrapped her arms around the two of them so that they trapped Miles between them.

“ _Mijo_ , you are so soft,” she whispered through her tears. Miles hiccupped and pressed his wet eyes even tighter against Jeff’s neck. “How can we help, baby?” she pleaded.

“I don’t know,” he choked.

Of course, he didn’t. And why should he? He was fourteen years old.

“Who does?” Jeff asked him softly, rubbing wide circles into his back while Rio smoothed a hand through his hair.

Miles shook his head.

That was fine. Jefferson knew.

 

 

Matt lived in Hell’s Kitchen. Miles didn’t know exactly where, he’d never met him at home. But Matt, bless him, had punched a guy in the face at a bar that year and so had a bit of a police record. Jefferson would never use the system for personal gain, but he gave himself this one time for the sake of his son.

Just once. Never again. He wasn’t that kind of cop.

It turned out to be a fairly run-down old building that Matt lived in, the kind which Jefferson thought most people with fancy law degrees probably wouldn’t have anything to do with. They knocked on the door of the topmost apartment, though, and sure enough, Matt opened the door.

No glasses. Sweats. Glaring blearily out in front of him at nothing, and holding an ice pack to a wound which had soaked through its bandage on his side.

He obviously had some choice words for Miles in particular and had not anticipated the extent of his audience.

Somehow, even though his cloudy eyes didn’t land on any of them, he seemed to recognize both Rio and Jefferson and dropped the ice pack in shock.

“Th-this-this isn’t wh-what it l-looks like,” he stammered.

Miles sighed.

“They know,” he said.

 

 

Matt was so much smaller outside his immaculate suit--the one he wore to court and the one he apparently wore running around at night like an idiot. Jeff couldn’t believe he was thinking it, but the guy really needed some armor or padding or something in that thing, Christ. Rio’s hands were practically twitching with the urge to change the gauze on his side.

Matt, for his part, refused to let them into his apartment. He stood in the doorway with his arms crossed, trying his damnedest to look intimidating.

“Honey, that’s got to be painful,” Rio observed gently.

“It’s not,” the guy snapped immediately.

Blood was bleeding out of the gauze and mixing with the condensation on the re-acquired blue icepack in Matt’s opposite hand. Pinkish drops dripped onto the floor.

“Were you stab--?”

“No ma’am,” Matt answered before Rio could even finish the sentence.

Another awkward silence.

“Maybe we can talk inside?” Jeff tried. “It’s a little awkward to uh, have this conversation in the hall.”

Matt stayed stiff as a board.

“You got a warrant?” he asked.

Jesus. Christ.

“No,” Jeff sighed. “This isn’t a police search—”

“No warrant, no entry,” Matt said.

“Matt, you’re our family lawyer, we’re not here to accuse you of anything. We just want to—”

Matt ducked back into his apartment and half closed the door.  

“Talk to Peter,” he said to Miles and Miles only. “I have nothing to do with this.”

Miles didn’t seem too surprised for some reason. Rio, however, was definitely starting to panic a little bit at the cute little puddle of pinkish water he’d left behind. Also the twelve-inch purply-black bruise which he’d revealed when he’d spun around.

“You’re dead to me,” Miles informed his, well, his friend, Jeff guessed.

Matt laughed. Actually laughed. Then closed the door.

“Coward,” Miles further accused. “I know you can hear me. _Daredevil_.”

They heard another laugh, far more muffled this time, through the door.

“Come to my house again and I’ll end you, _Spiderkid_ ,” Matt volleyed back. It was softened by the door and its adjacent walls.

“As if you could,” Miles sniffed.

He spun around and started off down the hallway. Jefferson and Rio blinked and looked at each other. Rio gestured with both hands at the bloodstain with a furrowed brow. Jeff shrugged at her because he didn’t exactly have a handle on the situation here, honey.

As soon as he took one step away from the door, it flung open and Matt lurched out, livid.

“You wanna fuckin’ go, kid?” he barked.

“Nah, old man, you’re just gonna croak. S’like kicking a dog,” Miles spat over his shoulder, opening the stairwell door.

Jeff was scandalized. Rio was scandalized. Miles wouldn’t dare take that tone in their house. They’d raised him better than that.

Jeff made the mistake of glancing over at Matt and saw that a vein in his neck had popped out a little bit. His fingers clenched slightly. Klaxons blared in Jeff’s head.

If Matt really was Daredevil, and all the signs right now pointed to that very much being the case, the last thing they wanted to do was antagonize him. Injured or not, Daredevil was still a nightmare in a fight. Jefferson had personally witnessed him break a guy’s shoulder to avenge his own abused rib. And even then, Daredevil had still escaped before Jeff and his coworkers could even set foot in the alley.

Miles, however, had zero respect for that kind of power. Instead, he had the gall to look haughtily over his shoulder and scoff before letting the stairwell door swing closed behind him.

It didn’t close.

It didn’t close because, somehow, Matt and all his injuries were suddenly holding it open.

He and Miles then appeared to engage in a furiously whispered conversation over there. Rio’s face twitched at the full sight of Matt’s back which, now that Jeff could appreciate it, beautifully displayed the silhouette of a crowbar.

The crowbar vanished when Matt stepped fully into the stairwell and let the door close behind him so that he and Miles could argue in private.

“Oh my _god_ ,” Rio hissed.

“I know,” Jeff said through his teeth.

“Oh my god, he’s just a baby, _how_?” she demanded, staring up at him in horror.

He didn’t know. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know. He did, however, have a sneaking suspicion that whatever was in Matt’s apartment was incredibly incriminating. He didn’t want Jeff to see whatever it was.

Fuck.

Hopefully it wasn’t a body.

“Fine,” Matt’s voice suddenly snapped. “Two minutes.”

“Five,” Miles argued.

The two of them reappeared in the hall.

“One,” Matt growled. He stomped forward and yanked his door back open, then squinted at Jeff’s face as though he was trying to figure out whether or not he could be trusted.

“Five,” Miles maintained. “You like to talk.”

“One,” Matt said again. He ripped his eyes away from Jeff. “DD doesn’t.”

 

 

Matt’s apartment was, predictably, a health hazard and disaster zone. He had nothing on his walls. He had blood smeared all over his floorboards. A bottle of Scotch sat on the table next to a mess of needles and Jeff realized, sickeningly, that whatever was under that gauze, Matt had sewn it up himself without being able to even see it.

Rio was going to freak. Matt told them to sit wherever was sanitary and grumbled into his open kitchen to feel his way through his cabinets.

They were apparently getting tea.

Matt Murdock would not speak to guests unless they were holding tea. He had, it would seem, not been born in a barn.

“Honey, you can go to an urgent care,” Rio finally squeaked when she could bear it no longer. Miles didn’t seem bothered or surprised at all by any of this gore and even went as far as to sweep some of it aside and pile some other bits into their original plastic wrap, which was horrifying. Jeff wanted to grab him, but remembered that this was Matt’s house they were standing in and a comment about used needles wouldn’t go down well.

“Too risky,” Matt said. He set an electric kettle to boil and Jeff found himself wondering, a little hysterically, how he could possibly be Daredevil while having braille tags all over his kitchen.

“You,” Matt snapped in his direction without prompting, “You’re loud. Stop thinking.”

Loud?

“Matt has supersenses,” Miles explained.

Super? Senses?

“He’s also a ninja.”

“For the love of—I’m _not_ a ninja, how many times do I gotta say it?”

This was? An old argument?

Just how long had these two been friends?

“You’re a ninja, Peter said so.”

“Peter’s an idiot.”

“Peter’s a scientist.”

“Doesn’t make him less of an idiot. I’m not a ninja. I’m a rogue warrior.”

“Ninja Warrior.”

Matt made a sound like he was dying and then laid a cheekbone against the tile on his kitchen counter in despair. Miles watched him and then mimicked him with the opposite cheek.

“Not a ninja,” Matt said a little helplessly.

“Big Red’s a ninja,” Miles pointed out more gently than before. Matt made another sad noise.

“That’s ‘cause he’s a not a failure.”

A what now? Miles reached over and patted Matt far more sympathetically than expected on his bare arm.

“I thought that was quitter talk,” he said. “And we aren’t quitters.”

Matt sighed and rolled his face to that his forehead was pressed against the counter. He didn’t say anything. Miles watched him and frowned.

“Why’re you all beat up?” he asked, then glanced over to Jefferson and Rio. Well, at least that what Jeff thought he was doing, but then he realized that Miles was taking stock of the apartment. His lower lip started pouting.

“Was someone here with you?” he asked. And now that he mentioned it, Jeff looked around and saw that the apartment wasn’t just a wreck. It was a warzone. Furniture had been shoved askew and a few of the floorboards cracked and there was glass on the floor in places, as though something had broken. Bit of dark—wait. Those were Matt’s lenses. For his glasses.

“I need four drinks before we have that conversation,” Matt sighed. He offhandedly gave Miles a pat on the head before extricating himself from the counter, which, Jeff could see now, was one of the only clean spaces in the place.

Christ. There had definitely been a struggle. They were standing on the scene of an assault.

Matt poured some tea and then sighed even louder. His shoulders drooped as though someone had climbed onto them and leaned forward hard.

Miles cocked his head, then perked up.

“Why’s Peter here?” he asked.

There was a flurry of knocking at the door.

“Because he’s a dick,” Matt grumbled. “Go away. Police,” he called in the direction of the door.

“Dude,” Peter Parker’s voice shouted through the wood, “Was that fucking _Stick_?”

Matt shoved the tea across his counter and opened the cabinet above his head. He took a swig of vodka from an open bottle before calling back, gravely and scorched, “Yes, sirree.”

“Are you okay?” Peter’s worried voice demanded. “Is this a Chaste thing?”

“There are literally police in here, bud. Get fucked, we’ll talk later,” Matt slurred slightly.

“What’s Chaste?” Miles asked him. He shook his head and took another swig of vodka, then re-capped the bottle put it back up on the cabinet.

“I don’t care, I’m coming in,” Peter said.

“I’m naked,” Matt said, without much heart or heat. He leaned and elbow on the counter and then his cheek against it in resignation. Jeff was suddenly kind of worried about him. Miles seemed worried about him now, anyways.

Matt didn’t even try to move towards the door and in came Peter Parker. Blond hair, blue eyes, and far, far more articulate than the last time Jeff had seen him. He froze in the doorway and took in the whole scene. From Miles to Jeff and Rio, to the trashed apartment and then, finally to Matt. Matt waved with the fingers of the hand he was leaning on.

“Well this is a situation,” Peter announced.

 

 

“Ow. Ow. OUCH, FUCK, PETER.”

“Man, shut up, or your neighbors are gonna call social services again.”

Matt bit his goddamn wrist instead and Rio was 100% going to have a breakdown. Peter Parker--Professional Spiderman--could somehow sense a dislocated joint and had horrifying knowledge of how to reset most of them. Including the fingers on Matt’s ice-pack hand that Jeff hadn’t noticed were out of alignment.

Peter Parker, professional Spiderman, was fucking terrifying.

In a sweet, gentle, and caring kind of way.

He nodded politely to Jeff and Rio and promised them that they would talk seriously in just a minute, please. His friend was in crisis and denial of it.

“I’m not in crisis,” Matt grumbled flexing his lovingly replaced fingers and grimacing.

“You’re always in crisis. Fogs said you left work early,” Peter hummed. He held out hand and gestured for Matt to give something to him. Matt somehow was able to track that and gave him his elbow. Peter grabbed it and did something which made Matt’s back make several different kinds of crunching noises. Miles watched this with unnerving interest and then ducked under Rio’s protective arm to get Peter to show him how to do whatever he’d just done.

Peter let him do Matt’s other side and the poor guy swore like the devil.

“Are you just here to torture me? If so, leave. I’ve had enough for today,” Matt spat at the both of them.

Peter wasn’t fazed and Miles looked up to gauge his lack of reaction before setting his face in a similar set.

“You didn’t answer your phone,” Peter pointed out.

“I never answer my phone.”

“You let a cop into your house—no offense, Officer.”

“No, _Miles_ let a cop into my house. I am weak and defenseless and—”

“A failure?” Peter asked.

Silence.

“You said Fogs told you,” Matt said. His voice had suddenly dropped.

“Yeah, you’re way far gone, my man. I lied,” Peter said easily.

“You fucking—you nosy-ass—I told you to mind your goddamn business.”

“He’s a fucking dick, Matt. Just some old man with a power complex. He just comes here to beat the shit out of you to make himself feel better, ‘cause otherwise he’d just gotta sit there and think about how much he’s a useless, abusive piece of shi—put it down.”

Peter sighed like he had a blade pointed at his throat every day. Miles had somehow, in the span of a millisecond, shoved both Jeff and Rio back and put himself between Peter and Daredevil.

Matt did not release the pressure on his forearm. He kept it locked over Peter’s neck, pushing down _hard_. His other hand held the blade. Jefferson hadn’t heard of Daredevil using steel before; only clubs.

He could see now that those clubs held secrets of its own.

“You will _not_ insult my sensei like that,” Matt snarled. Miles spread his little shoulders wide. Jeff grabbed him and pushed him back with his mother. This was not business for a little Spiderman. Especially when the bigger Spiderman was standing right there, apparently handling it.

“You mean the guy who’s been abusing you since you were a kid?” Peter said, “That sensei?”

Matt snarled harder but remained silent. Peter scoffed.

“Right, just making sure we’re talking about the same guy, man.”

Silence.

The tension held.

Then Matt deflated and dropped the short knife and his forearm.

“Sorry,” he said. Peter hummed.

“You look like shit,” he said without emotion.

Matt laughed. Peter squinted at him.

“I promised Fogs I’d hold you hostage until dawn,” he said.

“Ah, I hate you both,” Matt told him, patting his cheek.

“Go take a shower. If you’re not back in ten, I’m checking for drowning.”

“Fuck you.”

“Shower.”

No one moved for a moment, and then Matt gave another soft laugh and shrugged like ‘why not?’ and stepped away and then out of the room. He pulled back a wall panel to reveal a bedroom and then closed the panel behind him, apparently to shower.

Peter’s blue, blue eyes watched him intently until it closed and then he sucked in and let out a big breath. He looked at Miles and lit up.

“Well, heya buddy. Long time no see,” he said.

 

 

“Matt’s teacher is a dick with a capital ‘D,’” Peter explained, easily moving furniture back into place. Easily because he could lift literal tons with his mutation, he told Jeff and Rio breezily. “I mean, everyone’s got tragic backstories in this business. Lose a mom, pop, brother, sister, cousin—for me, uncle. Oh hey, for Miles too, right little buddy? Twinsies.—but Matt’s had a shit time of it from start to finish. He always falls back into all that brainwashed, cult-warrior, kid-soldier bullshit when his teach blows back into town. Y’all just caught him on a bad day is all.”

Y’all just caught him on a bad day—Jesus H. Christ, their family lawyer needed some intense therapy and a hug. At minimum. Jeff was prescribing it.

“Anyways, I bet you guys are in shock, and not just from this--this isn’t that shocking, just so you know. We’re all human disasters, it’s easier to just let it wash over you, I promise—and just so you know, that is a completely normal and understandable reaction to have. Especially since Miles is precisely four and a half.”

Peter dodged the first of Miles’s punches, but didn’t quite make the second one. Miles pouted up at him and he mugged right back down and Jeff suddenly felt like he was witnessing a missing link.

“I’m not four,” Miles growled.

“It’s a _joke_ ,” Peter snipped.

“It wasn’t funny.”

“It was, you’re just serious and boring. I’m trading you for Bitsy.”

“Bitsy is even _more_ serious and boring.”

“Well, I guess I’m gonna have to go make friends with Big Miles instead, then, aren’t I?”

Miles whined at Peter as though this was the worst possible thing he could ever suggest. Peter whined back at him a bit and then pulled at his cheek and cooed and promised that he’d never replace him. He snickered and blocked both punches this time.

Jeff glanced over and saw that Rio was being charmed.

That was.

Concerning.

Peter was, yes, absurdly charming. But he was also 100% an enabler and 100% teaching Miles that vigilante justice was cool, hip, and chill.

Miles noticed his parents’ many expressions and stood up and came over to stand between them. He tugged his mom forward a little bit.

“This is my mom,” he introduced, “Mom, this is Spiderman. He’s really bad at Spanish, but Matt’s pretty good. Peter’s nice when he’s not being weird, which is always. And he helps me when he’s home, which is never.”

Peter faltered a little at the formal introduction and then offered a hand.

“I’m home sometimes,” he qualified.

Rio took his hand and Jeff could just about see how hard he was trying not to crush it. Huh. Well, that was something at least. He felt a little tug and realized that Miles was pulling at his own arm now. He raised an eyebrow and saw Peter immediately get a little more anxious. Miles had to have seen it too, but evidently, he didn’t care. Jefferson let himself be pulled forward so that he was looking directly into Peter’s eyes. Peter looked down and away. Didn’t want to make eye contact.

“This is my dad,” Miles said, “You met him once when you were all space-sick. He’s trying to be supportive. Dad, this is the first Spiderman, the one who you shot at that one time. He’s got anxiety.”

Jeff winced involuntarily and glanced down to scold Miles. He looked back up to Peter’s twitching smile.

“Well, _now_ , I’ve got it,” he joked. He held out his hand. “Peter Parker, Mr.—er. Officer? Uh.”

“Davis,” Jeff gave him.

“Officer Davis,” Peter corrected. “I remember you, kind of. Maybe. Sorry, things from that time are a little hazy, but uh.” He glanced between Jeff and Rio and chewed his lip a bit. “I—uh. Wow, this is hard. Okay, so I sort of owe Miles my life,” he dropped his eyes to the floor. “Actually, I entirely owe Miles my life; he stepped in for me as Spiderman when I was gone and then he…he saved me,” he said, looking up right into Jeff’s eyes, then into Rio’s. “He heard me panicking when Oct had me and he found the others and reached out and,” he cleared his throat and let out a nervous laugh. The kind that people did before they started crying.

Anxiety, huh?

“He’s a hero,” Peter finally said with a slightly shaking voice. He followed it up with an equally shaky smile, then dropped it into something a little more teasing at Miles. “Well, a hero-in-training.”

Miles’s smooth face leapt right into a pout.

“ _You’re_ in training,” he stated. Peter sniffed, much more comfortable in this realm of teasing. “B. told me he’s teaching you how to be assertive.”

“I _am_ assertive.”

“Yeah, like a sea sponge.”

“What does that even _mean_?”

“Means that people step on you all the time and you’re fine with it mostly.”

“How dare you—”

“You two are constantly exhausting,” Matt announced from behind them all.  He looked, well. Almost better. Slightly more pink. “Go have feelings far from here, this is a no feelings zone.”

Peter crossed his arms and, adorably, Miles mimicked him.

“No can do, pal. I got marching orders,” Peter said.

“Did you move my couch?” Matt asked, somehow offended by this.

“Reangled it to the original position.”

“Whatever. Leave. I need to clean and wallow and y’all are taking up floorspace.”

Peter nudged Miles forward and he stumbled and glared back over his shoulder. He puffed himself up and addressed Matt. He had to tip his chin up to do it. Matt raised an eyebrow at him.

“Yes?” he said.

“If you’re sad or feeling bad, next time you can call us,” Miles said stiffly. Matt’s eyebrow did nothing.

“Noted,” he said. “Now, out.”

Miles deflated, then turned back to Peter.

“Okay, but can my mom and dad talk to your aunt or to Foggy or someone? They’re freaking out.”

They weren’t; there was a lot of other things going on and Jeff was having a hard time prioritizing who needed the most attention at the moment. But no doubt in a few hours, reality would once again strike and he and Rio would definitely be freaking out again.

Peter cocked his head and hummed, then tapped his chin, thinking.

“May isn’t usually very uh…”

“Hospitable,” Matt finished for him.

“To random normal people trying to talk to her,” Peter continued. “The whole thing is kind of traumatizing for her, as you can imagine and she deals with that by being a little—”

“Aggressive,” Matt offered again.

“Terse,” Peter amended lightly. Then lit up again. “Oh, but actually. You know who has a nice, kind, friendly May?”

Uh, no.

“I thought B.’s aunt passed?” Miles said. Peter huffed.

“No, not B. don’t speak of him, he’ll text me and then do horrible things. No. Tats! Tats’s aunt is great. She’s insane, but you know, in a hippy, loving, let’s-share-feelings kind of way. And Tats started a little earlier than me and B., so you know, maybe that’s actually better for you two.” He smiled at Jeff and Rio like they could follow this conversation in any way whatsoever.

Miles seemed to get it, thank god.

“They won’t get all weird going to another verse, do you think?” he asked.

Wait.

A what now?

“Oh no,” Peter said, “They definitely will. But it’ll be fine. Hey, Matt, you want me to grab the dog while I’m there?”

Matt, with the addition of butterfly bandages on his forehead, now that Jeff could get a good look at him snorted.

“I ain’t need no fuckin’ dog.”

Peter hummed.

“Big Red says you need a dog,” he said.

“Big Red’s an asshole and a know-it-all.”

“Great, cool. I’ll get you the dog. Alright, you guys come with me real quick if you don’t mind. Gotta grab the dog first, here—Matty we’re using your room, hope you don’t mind.”

“Don’t call me ‘Matty,’ I hate you. I don’t want the dog.”

Wait, hold up. What was happening. Wait, wait.

Peter dragged the three of them into a corner in Matt’s bedroom, which felt like a huge breach of privacy and Jeff wanted desperately to apologize but didn’t get the chance because Peter was doing something insane with his hands.

He closed his eyes and held them out in front of him and kind of pushed the forward and they sunk into, well, nothingness.

Then he pulled and a fucking vortex opened and Jeff’s stomach did a loop.

Was that a spider thing?

He and Rio both look at Miles. He stared back and shrugged.

“I’m not as good at it,” he said, as though that was supposed to be reassuring.

 

 

There were two whole Peter Parkers.

The second Peter Parker was shorter than Peter and brunette. He somehow did not panic at all the people suddenly standing in his apartment. His apartment, Jeff couldn’t help but note, which seemed scrubbed within an inch of its life.

The shorter, brunette Peter sat up on his heels and left his scrubbing for a few moments to listen to the other Peter’s unusually calm explanation of what was going on and why he was standing there with three other people.

Jeff also couldn’t help but be distracted by the guy’s arms.

With those kinds of sleeves, this kid’s body would be _so_ easy to identify if it came to it. Jeff wondered if he’d thought of that when he’d gotten them. Either way, he could see why the other two called him ‘Tats’ now.

Tats, bless him, stared with soulful brown eyes at Peter and then at Miles and then lit right up as if his day had been made.

“Itsy, you brought your family!” he said in a slightly higher voice than their Peter Parker. “I only met Bitsy’s dad and that was mostly by accident and also, there was an iguana man?”

An iguana…man?

“Awww, you look just like your mama, that’s so cute.”

No, no. You are moving away from the main point, friend. An _iguana man_?

“Oh yeah, he was like, yay big. Climbed up my arm, got all them iguana claws. We thought he was Connors for a second there, nearly had a heart att—”

“Oh my god, you know a Connors—Miles, he knows a Connors,” Peter said. Miles perked up.

“His name’s been all over some of my stuff lately,” Miles told Tats who’s soulful eyes took on a bit more trepidation than before. He grimaced a little but tried to cover it with optimism.

“I dunno about your Connors, but mine def tried to eat me when I was like, what, fifteen? Sixteen? Sewer guy. Matt calls him exclusively ‘Lizard Man’ and has never wanted to fight anyone more in his life.”

Matt? There was another Matt?

“Oh _shit_ , I forgot the dog,” Peter remembered. “Sorry, sorry, these now belong to you, Tats. Miles, if you run into trouble taking ‘em back, give me a shout or a push and I’ll be right over. I gotta—hey, you know if Big Red’s being an old man and sleeping or?”

Tats laughed.

“You keep calling him Big Red and he’s gonna start demanding the rest of us do it. No, it’s a Saturday, I believe today is triathlon day.”

Silence.

Miles fidgeted. Peter slowly tapped some knuckles against his chin. Tats sighed hard.

“I know,” he said. “We all know.”

“Is that…safe?” Peter asked sensitively.

“No, obviously not. He sucks at the biking and the swimming and I tried to tell him that there’s no point in competing if two of the three events are death traps for you, but, well. It’s Matt. And Fogs doesn’t let him do the DD thing around the city as much as he used to, so he’s got to find new ways to maim himself. But anyways, yeah. He’ll probably have the dogs. It’s either triathlon day or grooming day, so if you’re lucky you will get clean dog and if you’re not, you’ll still get clean dog, ‘cause Fogs is waging a war against fur in their house.”

Oh. Those two were together here. That was adorable. Rio seemed to think so, anyways.

Peter then left them in the capable hands of the other Peter who, himself, was waging a war on what turned out to be silverfish.

“Make yourselves comfortable, I’ll just be one more minute,” he said, before recommencing some unnecessarily aggressive scrubbing of tile. Miles offered to help him and then Rio offered to help him, but he declined both times enthusiastically.

 

 

While Tats tormented his kitchen floor, Miles explained what the hell was happening. Tats was the main Spiderman of this universe, he said. He was the main Spiderman of their own universe. Peter used to be their main Spiderman, but he’d kind of fallen into an auxiliary position because Dr. Oct had mutated his cells. He was twice mutated now and was actually much more comfortable in the space between all the universes and so had become what they apparently called the ‘multiverse Spidey.’ Tats, on the other hand, had his own kind of multiverse going on in his verse. He was part of a team of four Spidermen. He’d taken a hiatus from being Spiderman in grad school and apparently the city’s crime rate had gone to absolute shit and a few normal people had taken up his banner in his stead. He called them his ‘copycats’ and upon his return, two of them had helped him restore order, in as much as you could restore order to the city.

After that, it turned out, Tats had run into the Miles Morales of this universe and had brought him onto the team to mentor with the others. All the Spidermen called that Miles ‘Bitsy’ and Jefferson and Rio’s Miles ‘Itsy’ to tell them apart. Their Miles was allegedly a bit taller than Bitsy and far, far, _far_ less grumpy (according to Tats.)

“I keep waiting for Bitsy to fuck up too, but he’s insultingly competent at secret keeping,” Tats told them. “My aunt found out when I was fifteen and I literally thought she was going to skin me and leave me out in front of Mr. Stark’s office in a cardboard box.”

Jeff could sympathize.

“But you guys worked it out?” he asked.

Tats hummed.

“Yeah, more or less. I think she always handled it better than I did, anyways. ‘Specially when I got older and a little more, uh. Erratic.”

Erratic? Was that part of the mutation?

“Uh, no. That’s entirely my own fucked up brain chemistry. I got more anxiety than I got buckets. And trust me, I’ve got a lot of buckets.”

Why.

Why did he have buckets?

What did he keep in them?

Was it Spiderthings?

 

 

They met Tats’s aunt and she was.

She was.

Hm.

If there was a spectrum of personhood with ‘barely human’ on both ends for opposite reasons, she’d be on the end which included the ‘so much personality’ side.

Tats, it turned out, had been raised by his aunt and uncle. His parents had disappeared when he was a toddler. It was very clear that he adored his aunt and May Parker adored him just the same. She didn’t treat him like he had any kind of mutation. She didn’t even acknowledge it or the strangeness that was a load of strangers showing up to her door. Instead she threw her arms around Miles and demanded to know where the others were.

Tats tried to tell her that that wasn’t Bitsy, but this information appeared to have little effect on the hugging.

Tats then kidnapped Miles and left Jeff and Rio to talk with this tiny white, hippy lady and her huge glasses. He announced that he had another task which required Miles’s help. Jeff felt paranoia high in his chest as Miles excitedly asked if it was a Spiderman thing.

“What? No. It’s Saturday, yo. We ain’t doing any of that shit, it’s called ‘self-care.’ No, you, my dearest, darling, Itsy, are gonna help me catch a cat.”

“A cat?”

“Yep.”

Miles was unimpressed. Tats beamed, however, undaunted. He then dragged Miles off into the street.

May Parker watched the evacuation fondly. She gave Jeff and Rio a smile as equally as bright as her nephew’s.

“Don’t tell him, but I’m thinking about getting him a kitten for his birthday,” she said.

 

 

May Parker’s advice boiled down to; they are going to do what they are going to do and the best you can do is hold their hand through it.

It is going to be hard, she said. It is going to be the hardest thing you’ve ever done because Miles was going to bleed and he was going to cry and he was going to experience pain and hurt and loss on a scale which was inconceivable to most human beings on the planet.

“But the second he put on that mask, he made that decision,” she said. “He won’t go back on it, none of them ever do.”

Her Peter had severe anxiety stemming from his early years as Spiderman. He had PTSD which he didn’t really consider PTSD (because Spiderman is invincible). He had a truly magnificent lack of self-esteem and some unintentionally suicidal inclinations.

“He doesn’t want to die,” May told them firmly, “He just gets his lines crossed when it comes to prioritizing lives and sacrifice in the moment.”

It was hard to listen to. Hard to hear and reconcile with Tats’s smile and nonchalance.

“Oh, that’s all an act,” May told them knowledgably, “The nonchalance. Pete’s always been an upbeat kind of kid. He uses the jokes and the chatter to cover up the other not so great stuff. Most of them are like that, as far as I can tell. Our Bitsy’s getting to be a little like that these days, too. So maybe your baby is on his merry way.”

He definitely was. Still, though. There were so many questions they needed to ask and what felt like not enough time to ask them. May surveyed his and Rio’s conferences with grace and tied her hair up into a messy bun in the meantime.

“Don’t be so hard on yourselves,” she eventually said. “This is whole new territory for everyone. There’s not exactly a guidebook for any of it. Oh. Actually, you know what really helped us? Matt and Wade.”

Matt? Like, Murdock, Matt?

“Oh, yes. He’s a barrel of laughs, isn’t he? We nearly lost this place, but he stepped in to help us out.”

Huh. It seemed to be his way, then, didn’t it?

“He’s a funny guy,” May said pleasantly, “Got ahold of Pete when he was about fifteen and despaired at his general being.” She laughed. “He and Wade taught Pete how to be like them—how to fight, safety stuff, how to stop losing backpacks, oh my god. Six in a year that year, can you believe it? I lost count of how many textbooks, too. I don’t know what we would have done without them. We were lucky enough to have Mr. Stark take an interest in Peter, but those two, they’re our family.”

Oh.

_Oh._

Jeff thought that maybe he understood, now.

“You have to make families?” Rio asked. May paused in her fidgeting and thought about it.

“I guess that’s one way of putting it—yeah, no. That’s probably the best way of putting it. Me and Pete always had each other, but my folks have been gone for a while and Ben’s folks, too. Of course, we’ve got the girls down at the ER and Pete’s got his circle of friends, but you know, when you’re trying to figure things out—when Pete was trying to figure things out—having one of those older guys around was unbelievably helpful. Maybe connecting with the ones your Miles spends time with will make you feel better. It certainly made me feel better. Especially Wade; he’s all scary Deadpool to most people, but he’d do anything for Pete, it’s really sweet, actually.”

Wait just a fucking second here. Did she just say Deadpool? As in _the_ Deadpool?

May shrugged with her hands.

“He and Peter have a soul connection,” she said. “They have similar chaotic energy.”

Uh.

Okay, crazy aside. Deadpool. Christ. Fuck. Okay, that was—other vigilantes, that would maybe be almost fine, but Miles wasn’t going to have anything to do with Deadpool if Jeff could help it.

 

 

Tats returned shortly thereafter with a huge gray and white cat in his arms and Miles at his heels.

“Romeo!” May cooed, throwing up her arms and standing in delight, “You’ve returned from sweet Verona. Your mama will be so happy.”

The cat hated everything. Except Tats. It squirmed out of his grip and wrapped itself around his shoulders instead. It glared at May’s cooing. Miles watched the cat with interest from behind Tats’s back and it turned around to stare right back into his eyes.

It hissed.

He hissed back.

Tats kind of rumbled in happiness.

O…kay. So, this was their new normal.

 

 

Peter returned after another ten minutes to help them all exit this universe. Miles could do it, but it seemed to take more effort for him than it did for Peter. They stepped through into Matt’s apartment once again, which had since been cleaned and swept.

Matt was passed out on the couch on his side, covered in an enormous fleece blanket with a blue and white lion mascot on it. A pale golden retriever had nestled into the hollow of his legs on top of the blanket.

She was a beautiful dog with a pink collar.

“This is Tues,” Peter introduced quietly. The dog wagged her tail upon seeing Miles. She didn’t get up, however. Miles went to her to nuzzle her forehead. It made her tail wag harder. “She’s Big Red’s retired guide dog.”

Huh.

 

 

Miles was endearingly excited that Jeff and Rio had met his friends. He was reluctant to push it too far, but Jeff could see that right under the surface, he wanted to bust out the ‘do you like them?’ ‘aren’t they cool?’ ‘I love my friends!’ stuff.

It was sweet.

It was shockingly comforting.

Miles made it almost halfway through dinner before he bubbled over with excitement.

“Do you,” he mumbled, “Do you like Peter at least?”

Peter was a mess of a human. A well-meaning mess who was a good friend to Matt and who appeared to respect and trust Miles beyond his years. Jeff could just about appreciate that.

“I like Tats, he’s a sweet guy,” Rio said. Miles beamed at her.

“That’s what I said. I told B. and Peter that I wanted to trade them for him and they got mad.”

And now back to this B. guy. Who the hell was B.?

“Is he your favorite Spidey?” Rio asked, watching Miles crunch through salad with newfound enthusiasm.

“No, that’s Gwen. Gwen’s my favorite,” Miles said. “She’s Spiderwoman and she’s really nice and funny and cooler than all the other guys.”

Jesus, there was a Spiderwoman. Of course there was a Spiderwoman.

“Her dad’s a cop, too. He’s a captain. And her Matt tries to kill her at least twice a week.”

Holy _shit_. Jeff took it back. Things could always be worse.

 

 

The only logical thing to do next was to get some parent controls on this who mess. It only made sense to figure out just who Miles was hanging around with. Who all these crazy names belonged to.

Who Gwen was, especially. Because now that they knew who she was conceptually, it had quickly become evident that she and Miles weren’t just friends, they were best friends. And Rio was thrilled. She had many, many questions about Gwen including little jabs at a potential crush which Miles flat out denied, but not without looking a teeny bit wistful about it.

When they finally met Gwen, it was because she’d reached out to Miles in order to panic over something about this ubiquitous Connors guy. Miles opened a window into Gwen’s verse in the living room and she lurched through in teal ballet slippers and a white costume and asked him why the fuck he was still in socks, _come on_ , man. We got shit to do.

Then she noticed Jeff and Rio and went stock still.

Gwen was a spitfire of a girl. She played drums. She was about a year and a half older than Miles and in her verse, Peter Parker had been her best friend who died as a result of a mutation gone awry.

Her Matt Murdock was a psychopath. She didn’t seem so concerned about him.

“I got dirt on him now,” she informed them.

“Which is?” Jeff tried, already hating the answer.

“He’s head over heels for the District Attorney and any time he threatens me, I threaten to tell the DA about the full extent of his warm fuzzies. Last week, he came in with all these sai blades, so I had him chase me to Hell’s Kitchen and then helped Mr. Nelson buy catering stuff for next week’s memorial and he couldn’t do shit without embarrassing himself.”

Jeff couldn’t decide if this was fair play or not.

 

 

After Gwen came a weird-ass kid who Miles and Gwen alternated between calling ‘Benj’ and ‘Noir.’

Noir as in the films, because this kid literally appeared in black and white. He had a thing about colors. He was a Peter Parker, too, but, Gwen explained, there was a metric fuckload of Peters and so they all had to get different nicknames.

Noir came from the 1930s and bless his heart, he was constantly vigilant—trying to listen for air raid sirens and throwing himself in front of Miles out of fear of bombs in electronics. He did not trust cars whatsoever. He just wanted to borrow a wrench. Jeff offered him the tool box and maybe did more damage than help.

Too much choice.

Miles eventually stuck a happy face sticker to an adjustable wrench and this made it an acceptable tool to the guy. He returned it to Miles in mint condition a few days later.

 

 

Then there was Peni, who was adorable and very sweet and who Miles talked to about tech and memes for hours. She was a tiny genius and had a bit of an accent. She fought crime in a giant mecha spider thing.

Jefferson decided not to think too hard about that for too long.

Peter, for whatever reason, was petrified of this tiny child. Wherever she was, he wasn’t. She was determined to make friends with him and referred to him only as ‘Space Spidey,’ which, Miles informed them, he despised with every fiber of his being but would never, ever, tell Peni this.

Peter, it turned out, had some problems around being a pushover and painfully shy with strangers.

 

 

Finally, after months of listening to Miles talk to himself and meeting different versions of Spideys from all over the world in addition to the universe, they met the infamous B. B. was Peter B. Parker, and B. was probably the most reasonable and professional Spiderman Jeff could imagine. In his own, scruffy, droll kind of way. They only met him because Miles rushed off to help Peter and Peni with something and B. showed up on the roof outside Miles’s window, with the back of Miles’s neck in one huge, knobbly hand, and the back of Peter’s in the other.

He was a champion lecturer.

He directed almost all of his ire towards Peter who claimed that this was unfair and undeserved and “Why don’t you ever pick on Miles?” B.set Miles down on the inside of the window sill and told him to behave for at least thirty seconds, for the love of god. He also gave Miles an earful about steering clear of bad influences. Peter maintained that he was _not_ a bad influence. The only bad influence present was B.

B. was a smidge taller than Peter, but he used every millimeter of their discrepancy to loom over him threateningly. Peter cringed and caved after not even five seconds.

“I’m sorry,” he whimpered, “You’re not a bad influence.”

B.’s thick eyebrow inched its way up his forehead wordlessly. The silence flustered Peter even more.

“I’m a bad influence?” he tried, “I’m the worst influence? And I’m gonna not be the worst anymore? Because that’s fucked up and Miles is young and susceptible to—” B. rolled his eyes and released his grip on Peter’s neck and moved to skid down the side of the roof. Peter panicked.

“Is that not--? Is this a test???” he called, chasing after the guy. B. flung out an exhausted, dismissive hand at him, stood up perfectly perpendicular to the ground on the side of the brownstone and gracefully hopped right onto the neighbor’s fence before moving across to the side of their house.

“It _is_ a test, isn’t it? Is this another ‘no’ test??? Am I supposed to say ‘no?’”

Peter was pretty graceful himself as he followed the guy. Miles scrambled out of his window, his thirty seconds of good behavior having passed, and chased after both of them with not even half as much confidence and agility.

Rio was shriek-laughing in the kitchen when Jefferson came down from the upstairs hallway and he quickly found why.

Their kid had missed a jump and landed himself right in the neighbor’s koi pond.

Good on you, Miles. Keep ‘em guessing.

 

 

Later, when Jeff actually got to talk to B., it became clear that this Spidey was going to be Mr. Advice for the next couple of years. He was in his late thirties. He’d been doing this shit for more than twenty years. He could not be assed to deal with Peter’s anxious bullshit on top of whatever bullshit he put up with at home, on top of whatever bullshit Miles and Gwen and the other Spiderkids seemed to inevitably drag him into.

“Your son is a menace,” he told Jeff and Rio without heat. “I adore him. He’s great. I’d give my life for him. But a fuckin’ menace, Christ. Talk about an awkward giraffe. You know what him and Gwen are doing these days? Making web car boots. Gluing whiskey bottles to asphalt in alleys. Ruining drunks’ days left and right. They’re conspiring with Peni to get Noir one of them twenty-sided Rubik’s cubes and he’s gonna start crying in my backyard, _again_.”  

Miles was, apparently, living out the adolescent dream with a host of other teenage Spidermen, wreaking havoc on each other in place of the public.

That was at least something.

“I’m sorry?” Jeff said, trying to swallow the fact that he was apologizing to a professional vigilante.

“Ehn, whatever. It happens. Kids are awful to each other,” B. said dismissively.

Kids. Wait. Important question number 2.

“Are they all kids?” he asked. B. scrubbed at his face and counted off his fingers with a frown.

“Ye—oh, sorry. No. Ham’s not. I’m not. Tats isn’t, but just barely. Blondie’s not, but just barely. Peni, Miles, Bitsy, Gwen, Noir—even if he denies it—yeah, they’re all basically twelve. They’ll get through it, though. The teens are the worst, once they hit their first mid-life crisis in their twenties, they’ll get back on track.”

That was the opposite of comforting.

“Ain’t my job to be comforting, Officer, it’s my job to be Spiderman. Now, great talkin’ to ya, but you’re still kind of cop, and I don’t trust any of you as far as I can—actually, no. I can throw y’all pretty far. I don’t trust any of you as far as I can throw like, an eighteen-wheeler. Or like, a small boat. Possibly Deadpool. So, yeah. Peace.”

B. might have been the most knowledgeable and mature Spiderman, but he sure as hell wasn’t the easiest to get ahold of.

“Gwen thinks his wife is pregnant and that’s why he’s grumpy, ‘cause she doesn’t let him sleep,” Miles informed him and Rio over Sunday breakfast, “But B. won’t tell anyone anything because he says that we’re all untrustworthy hounds with shit luck and he doesn’t want to compromise his life more than he already does on his own.”

B. was a fascinating character. Jeff couldn’t help but want to talk to B. a little more.

Miles told him that he could, he just had to bribe the guy with cheeseburgers and submit himself to be searched for bugs.

Again, B. was a _fascinating_ guy.

 

 

“Miles.”

His kid looked up at him with deep brown eyes. Guilty ones. Ones wrapped in black and red suit material.

“It wasn’t me,” Miles said, referring to the shit going down in Midtown. There was allegedly a velociraptor flying around down there. Jeff wasn’t on duty and he had zero intention of changing that.

“Is Matt okay?” he asked.

Everything about Miles’s posture changed. He slackened all over and then smiled like the sun.

“He’s not there right now, there’s a ninja cult thing that he’s supposed to be infiltrating in the Bronx. Peter bet me five bucks he’s gonna get shot, but he’s gonna lose because ninjas don’t use guns, right, Dad?”

Oh, you sweet summer child. As if ninjas played by the rules.

“I dunno, bud. Maybe you should start counting them pennies now,” he said.

Miles’s groan made his cheeks hurt a bit.

Yeah, okay. So his son was Spiderman. Big deal. They’d learn to deal with it.

 

 

 

 


End file.
